26 "The best Hollywood and anti-Hollywood novel we have." -HOWARD NORMAN author of The Bird Artist in' :::; - "L- a . ". L..LJ. , . o "L- w. by Leslie Epstein _f ." '" t tl., ):" \ ".;,' \ ,'\,' , ' ....., "o ,t\ ' , ,O,efbOC: . 1i;fiW1 .\ ((The definitive novel of Hollywood.. .an epic story of this century." -Atlanta Journal Constitution .- -' St. Martin's Griffin if"':'. ! ": ; Here's the perfect excuse for a trip to San Francisco. * , if you needed one.) ;:' : %Wi: ...:t;:, ..;: $129* ;;'::;:t ;;; Æ=B.tlf'1 :!;' ''m'f::f):':; 1:f!. <-1'- Close to eærything. Far from expensive. ,::':"' ""':;< ';.', ".;" >-' , ;':" ;.Eili ';";""""""""""';: NI)LFR) NIO :,.,-. N.,.,M;; :: :'> ;,< SQUARE HOTEL "''',w:'':': v "', ... ] : II :.4' '.4 · *N 'YoTker Rate (pl tax, maitibldg.) ;',.- '4 a Shô.de, ô.pô. t. ':."< ;:,::\1)':"': ::{' :(;i. :::::1 ;::: : r:': :t:::t!.; n;: , .. . ,, it ii' .,c ; ... t Â " .,; ';';'(";1' . :tt. ."... : .,:;:AP2 <; . r' BERIvlUDA ,!:,t' ..." \: ' #ink l1JfJflf'/, celaJ j TUCKER'S TOWN BERMUDA W 1.800.355.6161 . www.pinkbeach.com. e-mail: info@pinkbeach.com , ..-F'.... ... ....""".. 7' 9Iõ".-'!;'!;.- -- ''0'- .oOO;!'Y- .- ' "' :!'.o:..yr. ; ..... . oOl": ....-.;:..... _'-1-............. ...ovoQ.... ........- N>I' .................,...-"jo.......,. o)o...................."'= .. ........................ ....<<-_.... ..:..., '... _-:y .......nn............. ............^"'o' .ë ANNALS OF COMMUNICATIONS THE INVISIBLE MANAGER Can the reclusive executive who helped bring back the NF.L.-and is pushing Howard Stern-reinvent CBS? BY KEN AULETTA .. . fun1 N OT long ago, Mel Karmazin, the president and chief opera- tIng officer of CBS, got a call from Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Fox network and the chairman and C.E.O. of the News Corporation. "1 wanted to introduce myselL" Murdoch reportedly said. "We've never met, but I'm looking forward to meeting you." Karmazin's reply: "Rupert, we've met three times. I just wasn't important, so d ' b " you on t remem er me. Karmazin, who is fifty-four, has not put much effort into making himself memorable. The walls of his office are not filled with industry testimonials or photographs. He has few social engage- ments; most nights, he walks to his apartment, on Central Park South, and orders pizza. He is so private that, sev- eral years ago, friends did not know he had separated from his wife. His con- tracts with Howard Stern and Don Imus stipulate that they not mention his name on their programs. Don Hewitt, the founder and executive producer of "60 Minutes," says, "If someone asked me two years ago 'Who the hell is Mel Karmazin?' I wouldn't have kn " own. As for Murdoch, Karmazin says that he was "very gracious," but Karmazin has not pursued the invitation, because, he " h ' h . b " says, t ere s not Ing to meet a out. Murdoch, he points out, is neither an advertiser nor a shareholder; if he were, the call would have been "important to my life and the company." Instead, Kar- mazin says simp 1)', "I'm not a schmoozer." What he doesn't need to point out is that he is considered the likely successor to Michael H.Jordan, the CB Corpo- ration's chairman and C.E.O. Karmazin, a pear-shaped man with fluffy white hair and a tanned, round face, is described by a close friend as "a working machine." He does not play golf or tennis or get lost in big books. By his own count, he has not taken < !::. mE more than a five-day vacation since 1976, and he says that he went stir crazy at his beach house, on the Jersey Shore, over the July 4th weekend. "This is relaxing," he says of work in the office, where his days often begin at 6 A.M. "He has not an ounce of poetry, yet he is a beguiling figure," says the radio personality and novelist J ona- than Schwartz, who worked under Kar- mazin at \iVNEW in the mid-seventies "He has unusual, almost theatrical en- ergy. Because he's in such control of any conversation, he pays no real attention to subtle manners of exchange. Like punctuation. You feel that any conversa- tion with him is already on its way to conclusion. So if there's a point you want to make you know you have little time. Around Mel there is an immense twenty-four-second clock." Karmazin does have a get-to-the- point impatience. He rarely grants inter- views; when I first pressed him for a meeting, he asked, "What would it do for my stock?" He grills everyone. The CBS anchor Dan Rather says, "He is like a fighter who is always cutting the size of the ring on you. He corners you quickly:" Those who find themselves cornered by Mel Karmazin quickly realize that his vision of CBS is quite different from that of his predecessors. For Karmazin, the CBS that William Paley founded and that was once known as the Tiffany network-home to people like Edward R. Murrow and Lucille Ball-is history. He believes that the future is in the local stations, all of them profitable; the network will continue to play its traditional role-providing program- ming to affiliates and local CBS-owned stations-and to earn most of its rev- enue from national advertising. The CBS network earned more than three billion dollars last year, but actually lost money. (Of the four networks, only NBC earned a profit in 1997.)